Justices claim immunity ruling allows presidents to poison staffers, have Navy SEALs kill political rivals

In their dissents from the Supreme Court's determination connected statesmanlike immunity, the court's wide justices suggested that the bulk sentiment allows for a slew of alarming scenarios — including a president ordering a Navy SEAL squad to "assassinate" his governmental rival oregon adjacent poisoning 1 of his ain furniture members.

The precocious tribunal connected Monday ruled 6-3 that a president has important immunity for authoritative acts that occurred during his clip successful office. It's a determination that has important implications for erstwhile President Trump, whose prosecution connected charges related to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach and alleged 2020 predetermination interference spurred the Supreme Court to perceive the case. 

But though the bulk sentiment from Chief Justice John Roberts explicitly stated that the president "is not supra the law" and immunity is lone a origin erstwhile it involves an "official act" — the justices sent the lawsuit backmost to little courts to find if the acts astatine the halfway of Trump's lawsuit were "official" — the ruling raised a bid of frightening possibilities, according to the trio of dissenting justices.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elana Kagan wrote successful the superior dissent that the court's bulk sentiment "makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and strategy of Government, that nary antheral is supra the law." 

TRUMP IMMUNITY CASE: SUPREME COURT RULES EX-PRESIDENTS HAVE SUBSTANTIAL PROTECTION FROM PROSECUTION

U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor, and Amy Coney Barrett, not pictured, clasp a speech with moderator Eric Liu, Co-Founder and CEO of Citizen University, during a sheet treatment astatine the Civic Learning Week National Forum astatine George Washington University connected March 12, 2024, successful Washington, DC. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

"The President of the United States is the astir almighty idiosyncratic successful the country, and perchance the world. When helium uses his authoritative powers successful immoderate way, nether the majority’s reasoning, helium present volition beryllium insulated from transgression prosecution," Sotomayor wrote. "Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a governmental rival? Immune. Organizes a subject coup to clasp onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe successful speech for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune."

She continued: "Let the President interruption the law, fto him exploit the trappings of his bureau for idiosyncratic gain, fto him usage his authoritative powerfulness for evil ends. Because if helium knew that helium whitethorn 1 time look liability for breaking the law, helium mightiness not beryllium arsenic bold and fearless arsenic we would similar him to be. That is the majority’s connection today."

Sotomayor added that the bulk determination has "shifted irrevocably" the narration betwixt the president and the American people, being that "in each usage of authoritative power, the President is present a king supra the law."

BIDEN CAMP DISMISSES TRUMP IMMUNITY RULING: 'DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACTS'

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Yet different startling script is included successful a footnote from a abstracted dissent authored by Jackson.

Noting that the president's removal of a furniture subordinate would represent an authoritative act, Jackson says that "while the President whitethorn person the authorization to determine to region the Attorney General, for example, the question present is whether the President has the enactment to region the Attorney General by, say, poisoning him to death."

She adds: "Put different way, the contented present is not whether the President has exclusive removal power, but whether a mostly applicable transgression instrumentality prohibiting execution tin restrict however the President exercises that authority."

Sotomayor's decision summed up the prevailing tenor of her and Jackson's writings: "With fearfulness for our democracy, I dissent."

Both dissents were taken to task successful the court's bulk opinion.

"As for the dissents, they onslaught a code of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court really does today…," Roberts wrote.

He added: "Coming up abbreviated connected reasoning, the dissents repeatedly level variations of the accusation that the Court has rendered the President ‘above the law.’"

TRUMP TOUTS SUPREME COURT'S PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY RULING AS 'BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND FOR DEMOCRACY'

Former President Donald Trump speaks during the Independence Day Spectacular connected Friday, June 30, 2023 successful Pickens, S.C. (Sam Wolfe for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Adding that the dissents came "up abbreviated connected reasoning," Roberts wrote that the "positions successful the extremity boil down to ignoring the Constitution’s separation of powers and the Court’s precedent and alternatively fearfulness mongering connected the ground of utmost hypotheticals astir a aboriginal wherever the President ‘feels empowered to interruption national transgression law.'"

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Sotomayor's dissent swiftly reverberated passim societal media. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who mislaid to Trump successful the 2016 election, posted connected X that she agrees with Sotomayor's basal against the "MAGA wing" of the precocious court. 

"It volition beryllium up to the American radical this November to clasp Donald Trump accountable," Clinton wrote.